Can't Hear the rEVOLution
David Weigel | March 13, 2008, 12:07pm
Daniel Larison
responds to my
piece on the end of the Ron Paul presidential campaign, zeroing in on my argument that Paul wasted time going after the anti-immigration vote, which was split between five candidates, instead of the anti-Bush vote, which ended up going, as Matt Welch has shown, to McCain.
In state after state, he routinely fell behind both McCain and Romney among antiwar voters, when both stated clearly their intentions to prolong the war. This means that there was something very strange about Paul’s natural constituencies–they may have been against Bush and the war, but they did not place a terribly high priority on opposition to either one.
No, Paul's voters did. They definitely did. I met hundreds of them at rallies and somewhat less than a hundred at their homes, being canvassed or meeting the candidate. You couldn't count the grievances they had (the national security state, dollar strength, the North American Union, to name a few), but at the center of those grievances was an anger at George W. Bush and his brand of politics. At some point in the campaign every candidate, even the pathetic Romney, criticized something about Bush, but only Paul could say "Hey, registered Republican or Republican-leaning independent who feels betrayed by Bush. I feel the same way. You want to register your disgust? Vote for me." Paul's only real competition for this vote was with McCain, who had obviously run against Bush eight years earlier and could make a powerful, subliminal "toldya so" argument. I heard a number of Iraq-disgusted New Hampshire voters going for McCain for that reason, that they voted for him eight years ago and, damn it, they were right then. But Paul should have claimed the rest of these voters.
It also means that a restrictionist electorate that could bring itself to back McCain, Huckabee and Romney in large numbers is either generally poorly informed or fairly irrational in its candidate preferences, and the same could be said for antiwar voters. When restrictionists refuse to vote for one of only two candidates (the other being Hunter) who had any real credibility as a restrictionist by the time of New Hampshire, there is not much that a campaign can do.
Yes, that's why Paul wasted his time going after restrictionist votes. Every candidate was taking a dive on that issue, including Romney and Huckabee, who completely flipped their positions to win these votes. No one else was making the "sick of Bush?" argument.
Unlike the restrictionist voting pool, which could sometimes swell to 50% or more of the primary electorate, anti-Bush and antiwar voters consistently made up roughly a 30% minority of GOP voters, which meant that Paul was always fishing in a relatively small pool.
But it was a pool
he should have had all to himself. And 30 percent, after watching Paul score an average
4.5 percent vote in these primaries, sounds awfully huge.
Arguably, restrictionism was one area after Tancredo’s withdrawal where Paul could have conceivably gained some purchase, since he had some real credibility in opposing mass immigration in a field crowded with latecomers and opportunists. It was an attempt that did not pay dividends, but it was a reasonably smart move considering that it was the perception of Huckabee and Romney as hard-liners on immigration that continued to keep them viable with conservative voters who should have regarded both with suspicion on this and other issues.
Two things. One, this would have made sense if Paul was working in a vacuum and if every voter was not meeting these candidates for the first time. The Paul campaign seemed to fall under its own spell: its candidate was so obviously honest, and had been talking about this stuff for so long, that surely the voters would realize this and spot him in a sea of phonies. But that isn't how campaigns work.
Two, restrictionist voters and anti-war/Bush voters in the GOP primary expected different results from their votes. Restrictionist voters wanted to elect a president who would close the border. They wouldn't take a dive for another Jorge Bush. Tancredo, remember, quit the race and endorsed Romney because he wanted to beat McCain. Anti-war/Bush voters, though, realized they would not elect an anti-war candidate. Paul didn't even think he'd win. He, and his voters, wanted to make a huge, un-ignorable statement, grab delegates, shift the party their way so that the inevitable terrible nominee was at least looking over his shoulder at them.
I assume Weigel and others have seen the high unfav ratings Rep. Paul had in every early state; these high unfav ratings were the result in large part of Paul’s principled and correct foreign policy position, so it seems likely that an even more intensely foreign policy-based campaign would have been the cause of higher unfavs and would have been even less successful electorally.
This is true, but his low favorable rating was about 40 percent: Again, he'd have loved a percentage like that in any state. Paul was not facing a two-way race like John Ashbrook or Pat Buchanan '92 had faced. He was running in a badly divided, weak field, and there were many states were 30-35 percent of the vote would have given him honest-to-God wins.
As frustrating as it is to admit, thoroughgoing non-interventionism or a general “mind our own business” attitude in foreign affairs is not terribly popular among Republicans, and perhaps has not been for at least ten years. Focusing even more intently on this part of the campaign was not going to boost Paul’s share of the vote.
It would have done that and it would have made Paul's movement matter this year.
Headline explained
here.
Jen | March 13, 2008, 4:24pm | #
Taking back our Freedoms "RALLY"
Friends: NOW is the time for us to unite and come together, whether our primary cause is peace, labor, truth, human rights, American sovereignty, impeachment, environmental, voting rights, civil liberties, the Constitution or sound fiscal policy....or all of the aforementioned.
We are manipulated and overpowered only when we allow those in power to segment and divide us. In fact, we have much more in common than we may think. After all, we are concerned citizens and people of principle. Strength comes via numbers and the forging of sound strategic alliances by, and between, activist groups.
We will be updating you with additional information. And no, we are not just asking you to participate and to help spread the word. We are asking you to consider that WE must unite and WE must demonstrate the power of the people....we need representation and participation from every "cause" and "belief set" in order to send a loud and clear message that WE ARE RECLAIMING OUR POWER as Americans.
It is time to send a message to those in authority: WE may have different priorities, we may be of every persuasion, but we are all Americans and we are sick and tired of unrepresentative government. We are tired of watching the fundamental promise and potential of American life subverted by profiteers and self-serving interests. And we are sick and tired of the few pretenders, and their supplicants, who posture that their agendas are ours.
UNITED we will stand...and so will the America we love.
APRIL 15, 2008 MASS RALLY IN DC
TO TAKE BACK AMERICA
Join us in Washington:
APRIL 15th,2008
11 AM on the west lawn of the Capitol
Dave Von Kleist
of "The Power Hour" Radio show will be our Master of Ceremony and will be performing his music throughout the day.
Guest Speakers:
Ron & Carol Paul
A artists rendering of Ron and Carol in patriotic dress will be presented to them in honor of their 51st Anniversary.
( photo of picture can be seen here)
Penny Langford Freeman
Former District Political Director for Ron Paul
Russell Means ( Lakotah Elder )
James H. Fetzer
John Paul Mitchell, Author "No More Taxes"
Jack Mclamb, Police Officer (retired), Constitutional Patriot
Bill Stegmeier
Murray Sabrin, NJ -- David Robert Grate, NY -- John Wallace, NY -- Greg Lewis, Fla -- Dean Santoro, Fla --
Ted Terbolizard, CA -- B J Lawson, NC
Performing Artists:
International # 1 Hit Artist "Will To Power"
WNC's own "Empty Slate"
POKERFACE
( no introduction is necessary for these guys)
Wanda Case,
Soprano Vocalist performing "heart/soul rendering" presentations of Our "National Anthem" and "God "Save" America"
Everything is all set: We have the sound systems, staging, porta potties and the permit has been redone so we can start setting up the stages at 7 AM to be prepared for a 11 AM start off.
See you all there on the 15th with your signs and energy lets get this
REVOLUTION IN HIGH GEAR !
We have the permits in hand,
This is our chance to show Congress and the Senate there are eyes on them and they can be voted out if they do not start doing their jobs.
The participants can carry hand signs, dress in costumes and in general have a peaceful demonstration. No dangerous objects will be allowed ( Homeland security rules) as sticks with pointed ends, metal poles for signs etc. Bull horns are permitted from the steps for amplification for speakers.
THANK YOU ALL FOR THE TRUST AND SUPPORT YOU HAVE GIVEN THE GRANNYS THIS PAST YEAR. YOU HAVE ALL BEEN SO GENEROUS AND SUPPORTIVE WHICH HAS ALLOWED US TO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED THE TASKS WE HAVE TAKEN ON.
AGAIN THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS US ALL
Other Links:
www.hauling.ronpaulroadshow.org
www.taxday08.com
warriorgrannys@aol.com
( home ) 828-683-2009 ( cell ) 409-673-4891
27 Beaton Path, Leicester, NC, 28748
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Craig | March 13, 2008, 7:33pm | #
I agree with David's general premise, that Ron Paul would have done better by focusing on the anti-Bush/anti-war Republicans more so than the immigration restrictionist Republicans, but I doubt it would have mattered much.
Restrictionist voters mostly didn't vote for Ron Paul for the same reason they didn't vote for Duncan Hunter, or Tom Tancredo -- they thought all three were non-viable contenders, and wanted their votes to "matter" in determining the winner.
This is the same reason why anti-Bush/anti-war voters didn't vote for Ron Paul -- they thought he had no chance to win, thanks to the media telling them that repeatedly, or not mentioning Ron Paul at all.
In actuality, Ron Paul was quite viable, if only enough people believed that. As David points out, if all 30% of the anti-Bush/anti-war Republicans had supported Ron Paul, he would have won some states and been seen as a major contender.
Given that he had more actual, active supporters and donors than the other Republicans, he should have been treated this way from the beginning, but he was not, thanks to poll numbers from a population of largely uninformed and undecided likely voters.
Add up the numbers, though:
Only 50% of eligible Americans are registered to vote.
Only 30% are registered Republican.
Only 20% turn out for the primaries.
In other words, it takes only 3% of the population to win the Republican nomination. (About 6 million votes, about what McCain will end up with.)
Balph Eubank | March 13, 2008, 10:10pm | #
Let's see, Ron Paul:
1. Didn't just call for pulling out of Iraq, he called for stepping down from being a superpower.
2. He claimed we could eliminated the income tax, make Social Security voluntary, balance the budget, pay for healthcare for the poor, take care of our seniors -- all by cutting military spending. (Numbers do not add up!)
3. He called for a strong dollar at a time when blue collar workers are losing their jobs to cheap foreign labor.
4. He called for ending inflation at a time when Americans are mortgaged to the hilt -- essentially calling for a super-duper great depression.
5. He shared mailing lists with racist groups.
6. He had published racist and paranoid "news" letters under his name.
7. He called for elimination of the EPA -- way to get the youth vote.
8. His rhetoric had a blame America first tone -- not good at Republican events.
9. And his executive experience is very weak -- being a doctor and (mis)managing a newsletter. Not exactly a glowing resume for Chief Executive.
10. His principled no-deal-making-except-for-earmarks voting record meant he had little to no backing from his fellow House members.
------
So, it is not surprising he lost. It was fun while it lasted. He was more worthy of support than most/all of the LP's presidential candidates, but still not quite presidential.
Elvis | March 14, 2008, 8:01am | #
re: "2. He claimed we could eliminated the income tax, make Social Security voluntary, balance the budget, pay for healthcare for the poor, take care of our seniors -- all by cutting military spending. (Numbers do not add up!)"
Correct.
One of the bigger disappointments was that when challenged about his proposal to eliminate the income tax and the IRS, Ron Paul didn't seem to have done a thorough analysis of the budget numbers. The first few times he brought this up, he said it would require cutting spending to where it was five years earlier. Most of his subsequent comments referred to cutting federal spending back to where it was in 2000. Later that changed to 1997. In major interviews, I never saw him cite specific dollar amounts.
If you're running for president and making a claim like that, you sure need to be able to back it up with specifics.
In fact, here are the specifics for FY2007:
$869.6 billion - Social Security and other payroll taxes
The current account surplus for Social Security is now somewhere around $85 billion (down from about $175 billion when Bush took office). Medicare is in worse shape, and may even have a zero current account surplus in FY2008. In any case, assuming that retirees will in the near future continue to receive their currently-promised Social Security and Medicare benefits, that means that in practical terms, there is not much surplus left over from the payroll taxes after current benefits are paid. So we will put those taxes and the benefits in that mythical "lockbox" (which, if it had existed since the mid 1980s, would have somewhere around $3 trillion in it, instead of non-marketable IOUs that can by law only be paid back by the same group that paid in that surplus - the US taxpayers).
That leaves the following revenues, which total just under $1.7 trillion:
$1,163 billion - Individual income tax
$370.2 billion - Corporate income tax
$1,533.2 billion - Total income tax revenues (90.3%)
$65.1 billion - Excise taxes
$26.0 billion - Customs duties
$26.0 billion - Estate and gift taxes
$47.2 billion - Other
$164.3 billion - Total non-income tax revenues (9.7%)
So, except for the relatively small and dwindling Social Security current account surplus, personal and corporate income taxes together amount to over 90% of the federal government revenues not allocated to paying current Social Security benefits.
Now, some may argue that Ron only intended to move toward eliminating personal income taxes, but if corporate income taxes remain, so too would the IRS.
In any case, the other sources of revenue (tariffs, etc.) amount to about 1/9 the income tax revenues. To say the least, that's quite a gap to close from only those other revenue sources.
Oh, and never mind that even with over $1.5 trillion in income tax revenues, FY2007 total spending (including all those off-budget supplemental appropriations that rarely get mentioned as such) was so much more that the federal debt increased by just over $500 Billion in FY2007. Unlike the phony "budget deficit" this figure DOES reflect the payroll tax surplus (along with income tax over-withholding, and a few other things). Even if they continued to spend the entire payroll tax surplus as part of the general budget, they still needed to take in nearly $400 Billion MORE just to balance the budget.
Let's see, they took in $1.533 Trillion, but actually needed nearly $2 Trillion to balance the budget... so that means an across-the board income increase of about 30% was actually needed just to balance the budget (if counting all "off-budget" supplementals as real expenses.)
And Ron also advocated giving younger people a way out of the current Social Security system, allowing them to shift into a private plan. What do you suppose that would do to the current revenues needed to pay current benefits? The fact is that since the roughly $3 trillion SS "trust fund surplus" has been squandered as part of the general budget since the mid-80s, taxes are going to have to go UP to pay the currently promised benefits (or benefits cut, or both) by the middle of the next decade, which is when they would have started tapping into the SS "trust fund" (if they hadn't already spent it).
But, even without Ron Paul in the white house, younger wage earners probably will get to "opt out" of social security though - but not all of it. Though still having to participate in the payroll tax contribution part, they will probably WILL get to "opt out" of the receiving full retirement benefit part.
